Charismatic Renewal living in the Spirit for 50 years

Members of the local Charismatic Renewal movement, Carla Murphy, left, and Joie Murray, pray during the Mercy Rally held last year at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in Nashville. Tennessee Register file photo by Andy Telli

n 1967, a group of students and professors at Duquense University in Pittsburgh were on a retreat when they felt engulfed by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Their experience ignited the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement, which has touched the lives of Catholics around the world, including the Diocese of Nashville, in the last 50 years.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal will be part of the “Rivers of Living Water” 2017 Jubilee Conference to be held July 20-23 in Pittsburgh.

Chris Shafer grew up as a “nominal Catholic,” and she wasn’t even sure she still believed in God in the mid-1970s when she moved to Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where her husband, Doug, was stationed in the U.S. Air Force. “I found that fascinating that anybody believed in God. He was like Santa Claus you believed in childhood,” said Chris Shafer, a parishioner at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church in Nashville. “This was no longer relevant.”

But that began to change after talking with friends from her husband’s unit who had become involved in the Charismatic Renewal through their Episcopalian Church. She decided, “For this God story to survive all these thousands of years, there had to be something more than I knew about God.”

Shafer found a Charismatic Renewal prayer group at a Catholic church and decided to attend one of their prayer meetings. “I went home thinking, ‘I walked in not even believing in God, but now I’m on fire,’” she said. “I sang all the way home.”

She’s been going to prayer meetings for 40 years, including the Glory of Zion prayer group at St. Ignatius, since it was formed in 1980. “Everything I learned about God I learned at charismatic prayer meetings,” Shafer said.

The movement calls people to experience the same excitement and deep relationship with God that the first Christians experienced at Pentecost. It also draws its inspiration from St. Paul’s discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

“To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another varieties of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues.”

A Charismatic Renewal gathering in some ways can resemble a Pentecostal service, with an exuberant style of worship including dancing and waving of arms, people praying over others for healing, people speaking in tongues, and others prophesying about God’s love for his people and inviting people to be open to that love.

“It is definitely exuberant,” Shafer said. “You do what the Lord’s calling you to.”

“We try to present to people first and foremost the idea of God’s love and forgiveness,” said Teresa Seibert, another charter member of the Glory of Zion prayer group.

Although she is a cradle Catholic who grew up with the more traditional style of Catholic worship, Seibert wasn’t phased by the charismatic style.

“It didn’t scare me,” Seibert said. “The first experience of it was a real calming affect for me. I more or less saw this is what I’ve been looking for.”

The Charismatic Renewal is really more about listening to the Holy Spirit, said Father Michael Baltrus, who first got involved in the movement in the 1970s and was a member of the Glory of Zion prayer group before he left for the seminary. “It helped me listen to God,” he said. “That’s one of the best aspects of the Charismatic Renewal. …

“You become more sensitive to what God is saying, what the Spirit is doing,” said Father Baltrus, the new pastor at St Catherine Church in McMinnville and St. Gregory Church in Smithville. Listening to the Spirit “actually sets me free in my worship. That applies to the traditional form of worship and to people that are used to expressing themselves very much.”

When people let down their defenses and open themselves to the will of the Spirit, Shafer said, they can let the Lord “break into our lives. That’s what he wants.”

That surrender to God’s will helps people develop a personal relationship with God, Shafer said, “which we don’t talk about much in the Catholic Church,” Shafer said. “It was in the Renewal I learned there was a God interested in my life … who held my hand when I was in trouble.”

Doug Shafer saw his wife changing after she started going to charismatic prayer group meetings. “After a while, I could see a difference with Chris, in her attitude and how she acted. She was happier and more focused on things,” he said. “I decided I’d start going with her.”

For him, the experience was an awakening about God. “After I found God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit … I changed.”

The Charismatic Renewal is about “surrendering to the Spirit and what God wants for you,” he said. “Everyone can see themselves in Peter. … When he surrendered and repented the Holy Spirit came upon him and he could do all these things.”

Through the Charismatic Renewal, Shafer entered the Catholic Church in 1982. And years later, it led him into another role as a permanent deacon.

“The Charismatic renewal opened me up to the Church first … and it opened me up to service for the Church and everybody in it,” Deacon Shafer said. He was ordained a permanent deacon in 1999.

After attending Charismatic Renewal retreats and conferences in other cities, the Glory of Zion prayer group decided to hold one in Nashville in 1984.

The late Father Ed Alberts was pastor of St. Ignatius at the time, recalled Seibert. “He bet me there wouldn’t be 200 people. And I said there would. And I won,” she said. The conference drew 210 people from several states. “I still have the $5 bill he gave me.”

The Midsouth Catholic Charismatic Renewal Conference was supposed to be a one-year event. “But everybody said how much they enjoyed it and were looking forward to next year’s conference,” Seibert said. They’ve been holding it ever since.

Last year, the conference, which is cosponsored now by the Living Waters prayer group at Our Lady of the Lake Church in Hendersonville, featured author and speaker Scott Hahn. The two-day conference drew the largest crowd in its history, about 500 people, Deacon Shafer said.

The group is skipping this year because the normal time it would be held conflicts with the national conference in Pittsburgh, said Seibert, who is a member of a national council of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, composed of more than 50 members from across the country.

Instead, the Glory of Zion and Living Waters prayer groups will host a retreat on Dec. 2 at the Catholic Pastoral Center in Nashville.

The Living Waters group hosts a women’s prayer group meeting at Our Lady of the Lake at 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays and another prayer group meeting for everyone at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. For more information, call Renee Wright at 615-824-0939.

The Glory of Zion prayer group meets at 7:30 p.m. Sundays at St. Ignatius. “We’re there praising God if you’re interested in joining us,” Chris Shafer said.

For more information about the weekly prayer group meetings or the retreat in December, call Seibert at 615-430-9343.